Strictly by the numbers, Sunday's final game of the Mardi Gras Ball tournament should have been the biggest test yet this season for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team.

Texas State entered with a 10-2 record, and like the Cajuns had posted wins Friday and Saturday in the tournament's first two days. And, the UL squad could have fallen into the trap of looking ahead to this week's five-game Rainbow Classic in Honolulu.

Apparently, nobody told the Cajun hitters, who in two innings made the championship matchup of the Mardi Gras Ball just another Sunday in the park.

A mammoth three-run homer from Phillip Hawke and Adam Massiatte's two-run double highlighted a six-run first inning, and the Cajuns added three more in the second inning and never looked back on the way to a 10-1 victory over the Bobcats.

"Some people thought that in the last game before that trip, we might go through the motions," Hawke said.

"We wanted to show that even against a good arm, we're good enough hitters to set a tempo."

That tempo included six hits in the first inning off Texas State ace Ryan Bennett, who entered the game with a 2.25 ERA and had allowed 12 hits in 16 innings. He recorded only three outs and was touched for eight earned runs.

The rest of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com